SunPower Lawsuit On Poaching Trade Secrets Is Baseless, SunEdison

SunEdison plans to “vigorously” defend itself against a federal lawsuit brought by SunPower that claims that SunEdison poached employees and gained access to trade secrets.

Earlier this month, SunPower filed a lawsuit against its former employees and SunEdison. According to SunPower, some SunEdison employees encouraged SunPower employees to join the former. SunPower also claims that when some of its employees moved to SunEdison they copied a large amount of data, including trade secrets and sales roadmap. SunPower now demands a share in the profit that SunEdison might have earned by using that information.

SunEdison CEO Ahmad Chatila, however, has defended his company’s actions and promised to defend the employees. In an internal memo accessed by Greentech Media, Chatila stated that SunEdison has takes protection of proprietary and confidential information, its own as well as that of former employers of its staff, seriously. Chatila pointed out that he and SunPower’s CEO TT once worked in the same company where such lawsuits were used as scare tactics against employees who shifted from one company to the other.

The employees which moved from SunPower to SunEdison did not bring with them any proprietary and confidential information with them, Chatila added.

Three years ago, SunPower had filed a similar lawsuit against SolarCity. SunPower had sued 5 former employees for copying confidential files and providing them to SolarCity. The lawsuit was settled out of court.